Posted by Stone on November 1, 2009, at 20:31:57
Around 5 months ago my pdoc switched me from Effexor XR 75mg and put me on Remeron 15mg for anxiety and depression because I wasn't handling the effects of Effexor too well. This is where the problem starts.
The problem is I was put down to 37.5mg non-XR version for 3days and then told to start taking Remeron 15mg. Upon doing this I faced extremely horrendous withdrawals, electric like shocks from head to toe throughout my body, vertigo like symptoms and general fatigue and nausea. When I started taking the Remeron I experienced extreme depression and irritablity that I never experienced so extreme before - I have been on 5 anti-depressants in the past and never had felt like this. I had suicidal feelings and thoughts and everything was generally bad. However it did calm down and all of a sudden I noticed that I was feeling emotionally flat in both my depression and anxiety which I thought was quite abrupt and strange.
Curiously I decided over the next few days to test my emotional responses, to music, usual anxiety provoking situations, all different things etc. In this experimentation I found I was feeling what I can only describe as totally emotionally numb. Something I had never experienced before - because even while depressed in the past I do still experience emotions - if only negative ones. So upon realising this and actually being frustrated by my lack of emotions and generally not enjoying anything I decided I had enough and I wanted to take call it quits on Remeron and just take a break from it all. I asked my pdoc if I needed to taper as I was only on it 2 weeks and I told no.
I stopped taking Remeron straight away as instructed and over the next few weeks I started to feel a little irritable again but more or less the same. Then before I knew it was now a month off Remeron and I still feel like I'm on Remeron. So I just decide to wait it out. Then it's 3 months and I still feel the same and I start taking L-tyrosine and doing exercise to try and see if I can get myself back to normal. Now it's 5 months later and I still feel like I'm on Remeron. I have a total numbness and lack of pleasure I have never had before in my life that seems to have permanently stayed since going from Effexor to Remeron and then quitting.
I'm totally frustrated by all of this because I am not experiencing and pleasures or my normal emotions in my life and I just generally hate everything about this because I don't feel like 'me' anymore. I've tried stimulation from caffeine and it has no effect on me at all. I've tried getting drunk but all I experience is the physical impairments and no pleasure. It's a total nightmare.
Now, I don't know if it was the switch from Effexor to Remeron and the tapering between that caused this or Remeron itself or all of the above but I do know that Remeron antagonizes 5-HT2a, 5-HT2c and 5-HT3. I'm guessing that this antagonistic action has left a permanent effect somehow. I read somewhere on this site someone else experiencing anhedonia from being on and coming off Prozac and funnily enough Prozac is an antogonist of 5-HT2c as well.
I'm wondering what people's thoughts are on this matter and I might want to 'try' with my pdoc to get myself on the road to feeling more normal again. My pdoc is at a total loss for what is going on. I've thought about going on an anti-depressant to see how I might feel but I'm a bit reluctant to jump right in as I want to do this right and not scew things up further.
Is it overload of serotonin?
Is it serotonin depletion?
Is it dopamine depletion?I don't know.
poster:Stone
thread:923965
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/neuro/20090701/msgs/923965.html